Ted Stanton was a ‘quintessential’ newsman

Former Idahonian Managing Editor Ted Stanton was a “very versatile and committed editor,” a “quintessential” newsman and a mentor to a young newsroom, according to reporters who worked with Stanton in the 1970s.

They recalled his crew cut, which was often covered by a beret on chilly days; his relentless pursuit to ride his bicycle to the office — even through the snow; and his accurate long-distance shooting on the basketball court — before the 3-point line was implemented.

Stanton died Sept. 10 at his home in Houston after a long illness. He was 90.

Stanton was managing editor of the Idahonian (now the Moscow-Pullman Daily News) from 1970 until 1982 and taught reporting and editing at the University of Idaho, according to his obituary that ran Saturday in the Daily News.

He ran the Idahonian newsroom after working 13 years as a reporter and editor at the Wall Street Journal in New York City.

During his 12-year tenure at the Idahonian, Stanton recruited and mentored dozens of reporters, editors and photographers who went on to successful journalism careers, his obituary said.

“While Ted came from the Wall Street Journal, he really brought the Wall Street Journal with him, figuratively and literally,” said Kenton Bird, who was a reporter for a few years in the 1970s under Stanton before taking over as managing editor in 1982.

Stanton took a full-time teaching position that year at the University of Houston’s School of Communication, where he taught for 25 years until his retirement in 2007. During that period, he chaired the Journalism Department and was eventually elected director of the school.

Bird, now an associate professor at the University of Idaho School of Journalism and Mass Media, said Stanton kept stacks of Wall Street Journal back issues on the counter behind his desk because he never knew when he might need the publication to look up information for an editorial or to share a story idea with a reporter.

Bird said Stanton also brought the spirit of the large metropolitan Wall Street Journal with him to the Palouse. Bird said Stanton took the Idahonian from a small-town, straightforward news approach and added deeper news and feature stories that provided more perspective and analysis.

“He had a great news sense,” Bird said. “He knew what was important and what was interesting and how to combine them in writing a story.”

Stanton was also a great judge of photography, Bird said. At a time when newspapers ran fairly small photos, Stanton would run massive photos that were visually stunning and reflected the talents of staff photographers.

Bird said managing editors at the Idahonian and Moscow-Pullman Daily News since Stanton worked mostly in obscurity, but Stanton attended city council and school board meetings because he felt he needed first-hand knowledge to write editorials.

“Ted was probably the best known managing editor in terms of community visibility until Lee Rozen came,” Bird said.

Rozen retired from the managing editor position of the Daily News in 2018 after eight years with the newspaper.

Susan Sample, who worked four years as an Idahonian reporter under Stanton and who is currently a professor at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, said Stanton hired her out of college. She was a philosophy major who wanted to be a writer.

Sample said Stanton taught her how to quickly identify what the story was and how to write it with detail and brevity.

“Ted was the most patient teacher, not just with me, but with all of us,” Sample said.

She said most people in the newsroom were in their 20s and that Stanton established the Idahonian “as a reputable training ground for young reporters.”

“It just proved he obviously really enjoyed working with young people,” Sample said.

She said she has always used her initial training from Stanton — even four decades later.

David Johnson, another reporter under Stanton in the 1970s before working for the Lewiston Tribune from 1978 to 2014, said he, Stanton and other Idahonian staff gathered at the Garden Lounge in Moscow for drinks in recent years and talked about the old days at the Moscow newspaper.

Johnson, who is perhaps best known for the “Everyone Has a Story” columns he wrote for 30 years at the Lewiston Tribune, said Stanton preached accuracy, attribution and to write “tighter.”

“If it said ‘good story’ across the top, it was like Christmas day for me,” Johnson said of Stanton’s edits.

Johnson said Stanton edited the entire Idahonian and wrote at least one editorial per day all before noon. The Idahonian was an afternoon newspaper at the time. Stanton would then go to lunch and start preparing for the next day’s paper.

“He was a machine,” Johnson said.

Johnson said Stanton meant a great deal to him because he was his first editor.

“He was sort of a father figure to me and a journalistic mentor,” Johnson said.

Robin Stanton, one of Ted Stanton’s daughters, said in an email that her father was smart, funny and loved his family very much.

“I’ll miss his intense interest in the world around him, his curiosity about everyone he met, and his enthusiasm for life,” Robin Stanton wrote.

Garrett Cabeza can be reached at (208) 883-4631, or by email to gcabeza@dnews.com.